Strange as it may seem, a couple of weeks ago as I ruminated on Obama's broken promise to bring the troops home, his attempt to out-warmonger the Bush administration and his plummeting popularity, I thought to myself: "ya know, what that guy (or rather the disgruntled US public) needs is a good old fashioned 'Muslim terror attack'. Preferably one that includes a ranting 'terrorist' message about Afghanistan and 'slaughtering infidels'. That'll soon silence the rabble and get them behind Obama's Afghan surge!"

And so it was that, as I sipped my eggnog on Christmas day, I was shockingly unsurprised to read the headlines about an 'underwear bomb' (as shown above).

To adequately address the recent airline "terror attack" in Detroit and the airborne terror attacks in Yemen we must delve into the topsy turvey world of the 'war on terror', where black is white, up is down, and shady Middle Eastern-looking men and your knickers share equal rating on the US DHS threat-o-meter. In short, it's no easy task. So first of all, let me say a few words about airports and the old and new airport "security measures".

The nightmare that is modern commercial air travel started with 9/11. Before this date, air travel was reasonably civilized. There were no long queues (at least not after check in). We just threw our hand luggage on the security belt, walked through the scanner and we were done.

After 9/11 however, every commercial airplane became a potential flying bomb and passengers and their hand luggage had to undergo more extensive searches. In Dec 2001, the theatrics of the clearly brain-washed Richard Reid, aka "the shoe bomber", added the common or garden shoe to the list of potential terrorist weapons. Now, the equally bizarre antics of the young Nigerian Mr Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has thrown our underwear into the mix.

Both shoe and knicker bomber attempted to use PETN (a military explosive) on their respective flights. As a result, our shoes now go through scanners at airports and I can only presume that more invasive scanning of our lower torsos will also be mandated supposedly in an effort to prevent further knicker attacks. The problem, however, is this:

PETN, either in shoes or strapped to any part of the body, cannot be detected by airport scanners. A chemical test is needed. Unless authorities plan to drastically reconfigure the number and availability of international flights, there is no chance that chemical tests can be introduced for every passenger. Hence we reach our first tentative conclusion: that the billions of shoes that have been scanned at airports since 2001, and the billions of pairs of underwear that will henceforth become objects of official scrutiny, have and will have had nothing to do with airport security or preventing terrorism.

So what's it all about?

Follow me now, as I metaphorically wade through the vast piles of manure that constitute the raw material for the official story of the latest 'terror attack'.

The Christmas knicker bomber was not your usual disgruntled Arab or lowly Muslim acolyte. He was the son of Nigerian banking mogul and former Nigerian government minister Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, one of the richest men in Africa. We're talking one of the African colonial elite here, an African version of the British "old boy's network" While in London, his son, the knicker bomber lived in a ₤4 million apartment in Mansfield Street, in the city's West End.

'Terrorist' Mutallab (center) with his young and impressionable friends

He also enjoyed access to visas for several different countries, including the US.

It is not surprising therefore to learn that the knicker bomber apparently received special treatment at Amsterdam airport before he boarded his flight to Detroit. Eyewitness Kurt Haskell reported that a sharply dressed Indian man escorted him to the gate and told the attendant that the knicker bomber had no passport but needed to get on the flight. The sharply dressed man was told that he would have to speak to the manager, which he apparently did and successfully got the young 'terrorist' on board.

Now this requires some serious string pulling, and all the hoopla in the press about whether or not the security system worked is just hubris, because if the knicker bomber appeared at the gate without a passport, it is unlikely that he went through the normal process up to that point, including check-in which requires passengers to show their passports. In all probability he was escorted as a VIP to the gate by the sharply dressed man. So how do two suspicious looking terrorists, at least one of them without a passport, get to the gate in an airport and then onto the flight? The answer is they don't unless they have some diplomatic credentials or high-level contacts in the airport.

Guess who runs the security at Amsterdam Schipol airport? ICTS of course! the same Israeli owned security company that somehow managed to let the shoe bomber on his Miami flight in 2001 and several of those mythical hijackers who allegedly flew out of Boston's Logan airport on 9/11. It is also useful to remember that the shoe bomber was cleared through ICTS and El Al security at Amsterdam airport on a flight to Tel Aviv in July 2001 for what was apparently an all-expenses paid week-long trip to the Israeli city. What precisely he did there remains a mystery.

All of which leads us to our second tentative conclusion:

The knicker bomber and his handler were not terrorists. Of course, it all depends on who you think the real terrorists are...

Moving on to the bomb itself; as mentioned it was PETN, or rather Pentaerythritol, which is a building block for PETN. To make PETN, Pentaerythritol must be mixed with concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. It is assumed that these acids were in the syringe that the knicker bomber was attempting to inject, under the cover of a blanket, into his underpants. He then attempted to ignite the newly prepared PETN with some kind of a fuse. He was apparently unaware that PETN requires a shock wave rather than heat or flame to detonate, and a shock wave is best provided by an initiator explosive. In short, the whole enterprise was doomed to failure from the beginning. Since the bomber and his smartly-dressed handler were able to get to the gate without passports, and are unlikely to have passed through security, we are left to ponder why the bomber didn't carry an explosive that required much less preparation, like a half a stick of dynamite for example. Here's a short video of what a half stick of dynamite does to a file cabinet.

Tentative conclusion number three therefore is that the goal was not to actually 'kill infidels' but rather to reinforce the concept of 'Muslim terrorism'. In fact, it seems clear at this stage that the combining of terrorism and commercial air travel is a specific tactic by the real terror masters to maximise fear. After all, it is difficult to think of a place where the average citizen already feels more vulnerable than on a metal tube hurtling through the air at 35,000 feet. Add in a wild-eyed 'terrorist' and you have the optimal psychological conditions for fear-based programming.

In this particular case however, the knicker bomber was far from wild-eyed. According to the first passenger who attempted to subdue Mutallab on the plane, he offered no resistance and was docile. He was "staring into nothing" according to Dutch 'film maker' Jasper Schuringa. Schuringa also noted that Mutallab was actually on fire but showed no reaction whatsoever. This is suggestive of someone who is in some sort of trance. Indeed, Schuringa stated this explicitly in this interview but immediately followed it with the words, "I don't want to talk about that."

as the plane neared its destination of Detroit, Michigan, he heard a pop that sounded like a firecracker going off, and someone started yelling: "Fire! Fire!"

"Around 30 seconds later the smoke started to fill up on the left side beneath this person," he said.

"I basically reacted directly. I didn't think."

He jumped over the passenger next to him and lunged over Abdulmutallab's seat, "Because I was thinking he's trying to blow up the plane, and I was trying to search his body for any explosives."

"I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away,"

"Just to be sure I grabbed him with another attendant and we took him to first class and there we stripped him and contained him with handcuffs and we made sure he had no more weapons, no more bombs on him."

"The whole plane was screaming. The suspect, he didn't say a word."

Schuringa said other passengers applauded as he walked back to his seat.

The reactions of the other passengers seems normal. The reactions of Schuringa are reminiscent of someone who has been trained in anti-in-flight-terror tactics.

Jasper Schuringa's camera image of Mutallab as he is taken off the plane

According to reports Schuringa was on his way to visit an 'Israeli friend', Shai Ben-Ami who owns a restaurant in Miami. The flight landed at around noon on Christmas day, and by that afternoon Ben-Ami had become Schuringa's impromptu PR manager, aggressively negotiating fees for interviews and the couple of cell phone pictures that Schuringa had taken of Mutallab as he was being taken off the plane.

Eyewitnesses on the flight also reported that after Mutallab was taken off the plane the FBI arrested another Indian-looking man in Detroit airport. The FBI has since denied that anyone else was involved.

Patricia Keepman was on the flight with her husband, daughter and two new adopted children from Ethiopia. She reported that they were sitting about 20 rows behind Mutallab. Her daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight, including the attempted detonation. "He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly," said Patricia. "We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we've heard nothing about it."

Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell and his wife

Passenger Kurt Haskell also reported that a third Indian man was arrested after the plane landed in Detroit airport. Haskell also claims that he has since been visited by the FBI in what appears to be an attempt to silence him and his report of a third man.

According to CNN, the knicker bomber's father contacted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria recently with concerns his son was planning something, that he had become "radicalized". His pleas apparently fell on deaf ears.

Coincidentally, the Orwellian Patriot Act, passed on the back of the 9/11 attacks, is up for either renewal or trash-canning in a couple of weeks. What luck then for Obama, who is secretly very fond of such draconian powers, that the knicker bomber happened along, because there is now a very good chance that the Patriot Act will not only be enthusiastically renewed, but unanimously so.

There is no chance however that any of these troubling details will be discussed by the mainstream media, because none of them are relevant to the story that the US and Israeli governments want us to believe: Yemen is crawling with "al-Qaeda"!!

Going Global

Initially, all we had was a Nigerian youth and a misguided effort to detonate what we are told was an explosive compound. Within 24 hours however, IntelCenter, a group of US ex-military and intelligence officials who over the years have somehow managed to produce many of the "al-Qaeda" videos and messages that they serendipitously find on "jihadist websites", produced a picture of Mutallab with what they claim is the flag of the media arm of "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" and a message from the group claiming Mutallab as one of their own:

"We tell the American people that since you support the leaders who kill our women and children ... we have come to slaughter you (and) will strike you with no previous (warning), our vengeance is near," the statement said

Scared yet? Well, the people at Intelcenter really hope you are. They put a lot of effort into producing these messages and videos and images. For example, a 2006 'al-qaeda' video featuring al-Zawahiri released by Intelcenterwas analyzed by Neal Krawetz, a researcher and computer security consultant. During a presentation he gave at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas in 2007 about analyzing digital photographs and video images for alterations and enhancements, Krawetz showed that the video had been altered in a very interesting way.

Using a program he wrote (and provided on the conference CD-ROM) Krawetz could print out the quantization tables in a JPEG file (that indicate how the image was compressed) and determine the last tool that created the image - that is, the make and model of the camera if the image is original or the version of Photoshop that was used to alter and re-save the image.

A still from the the Intelcenter-faked "al-qaeda" video

Krawetz took an image (above) from the 2006 video of al-Zawahiri showing the Mr Magoo look-alike sitting in front of a desk and banner with writing on it. After conducting his error analysis Krawetz was able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward and at the same time as the logo of IntelCenter, which released the video. In short, it seems very likely that IntelCenter produced the writing on the banner, and probably the entire video, from whole cloth.

Despite this evidence, we are being asked to believe that the latest message and photo from 'al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula' that IntelCenter just happened to find on a "Jihadist internet message board" that links Mutallab with 'al-Qaeda in Yemen' is authentic!

An image of Mutallab with 'al-qaeda logo' procured (manufactured?) by Intelcenter

The Yemen government, or rather dictatorship, added its voice to the subterfuge by claiming that Mutallab was in Yemen from August to December 2009. Dodgy internet postings, as usual from unnamed 'jihadist web sites' would have us believe he was putting the final touches to his knicker bomb under the tutelage of "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" and specifically Anwar al-Awlaki, the US born Muslim lecturer, spiritual leader, and former imam. The very same al-Awlaki who allegedly corresponded with Fort Hood mind-programmed patsy Nidal Malik Hasan. The very same al-Awlaki who was allegedly the spiritual adviser to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Isn't it just wonderful how it all connects together in one giant web of "Muslim terrorism" that starts with 9/11?

The fact is, it all does start with 9/11, and the evidence that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by elements of the US and Israeli governments is so abundant that no further discussion is required. How Mutallab actually passed his time in Yemen is however still open to speculation, and speculation is always best when some reasonably objective data is marshaled to back it up. Data like:

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.

Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.

The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".

"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.

"Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings," he added.

The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.

Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was the same cell - led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani - whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.

The simple yet ugly truth is that Yemen is now squarely in the cross-hairs of the US imperial juggernaut. As to the reason why, we may need only look to the following report from Feb 2009:

Yemen's Ministry for Oil and Mineral Resources has received eight oil investment bids from international companies, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted Aidarous as saying, four of which were from oil majors seeking direct negotiations with Yemen.

The companies include Exxon Mobil, Total, and BP, the minister said, but did not elaborate on the nature of the investments.

Yemen also has significant natural gas reserves that are in the process of being explored and extracted by French Multi-national Total. But perhaps Yemen's most strategically important asset is its location. Sitting on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, the Yemeni sea port of Aden and the gulf of Aden in general is ideally located for the transport of the two aforementioned crucially important commodities. Over 30% of all crude oil and over 10% of global trade pass through the Gulf of Aden and control of it gives control over shipping in the region (think piracy) and access to the coasts of oil-rich East African nations like Somalia and Sudan.

Yemen, showing the gulf of Aden to the south and Somalia and Sudan to the South West

With climate change, in the form of a glacial rebound or a new 'ice age', and the massive world-wide social unrest it would cause, looking increasingly likely in the near future, the psychopathic elite are undoubtedly eager to ensure their own comfortable survival at our expense.

Yemen - Yesterday And Today

Yemen has only existed as an independent country for less than 50 years. During and after the Second World War, Aden was regarded as the key to the defense of British imperial interests in the Middle East, the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. As late as May 1956 a British junior minister, Lord Lloyd, stated that "for the foreseeable future it would not be reasonable or sensible or in the interests of the colony's inhabitants to aspire to any aim beyond that of a considerable degree of internal self-government."1 Naturally enough, Yenemis were less than enthusiastic about being indefinitely subservient to the British.

Historically, Yemen had been split into two governates, North and South Yemen. In 1956, as long as its then ruler Imam Ahmed did not interfere, the British were willing to allow North Yemen relative independence. South Yemen however was to remain fully British, at least economically. In response to an increasingly powerful trade union movement made up of the Arab working class who demanded better wages, living standards and infrastructure, the British attempted to consolidate their control in the South by establishing the Federation of South Arabia in 1959, a ramshackle affair made up of the various emirs, sheiks and sultans who were willing to side with the British against Yemeni nationalist aspirations in exchange for position and wealth.

British Petroleum had established an oil refinery in 1954 and the wealth that this resource could and should have provided for the Yemeni people was instead shipped out to further British strategic interests elsewhere in the world, leaving much of Yemen's population impoverished. While the British governing elite have always (and still do) view all (or rather most) non-Western peoples as little more than howling savages, like so many other colonized nations, the Yemeni people had no trouble recognizing the injustice of the situation. Faced with an increasingly militant nationalist movement within both South and North Yemen, the British reacted to the justified grievances of a mobilized civilian population in the only way they know how - subterfuge and force.

After a wave of strikes called by the Aden Trades Union Congress (how dare they!) which were followed by mass arrests, beatings and torture by the British military, a number of activists and organizations from Aden and outlying areas came together to establish the National Liberation Front for Occupied South Yemen or the NLF for short. The leaders were middle class... clerks, teachers, officers.2 To deal with the insurgents ('terrorists' in modern parlance), the British decided on the tried and trusted method of terrorizing the local population. They proclaimed the insurgent areas 'proscribed areas' and dropped leaflets telling the inhabitants to leave (does this remind you of the tactics of a certain Middle Eastern country in January 2009?). With that formality completed the Royal Air Force freely rocketed and bombed the areas, strafing any sign of human activity. Crops were destroyed, livestock seized and houses blown up, (again, does this remind you of anything?) When Yemeni farmers began to work their fields at night, the British military added night-time bombing.3

Search operations were carried out on a large scale in an attempt to restrict movement of men and weapons by the NLF. Inevitably, these searches accompanied by racists abuse and physical manhandling further alienated the population. Stephen Harper, the Daily Express correspondent in Aden, wrote fondly of the troops that "there's a lot of boot, gun-butt and fist thumping" but that this wasn't brutality but rather "righteous anger". An officer recalled how, when troops were banned from calling the Arabs 'wog', they wittily responded by calling them 'gollies' instead14 (see here for the origin and usage of the world golliwog). The counter-productivity of such abuse always was (and still is) lost on the British political elite and military and obviously did nothing to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Yemeni people in their rebelling against foreign domination.

Another tactic used by the British military (you may recognize this one) was the deployment of 'Special Branch Sections'. These were eight to ten man mobile patrols with an officer in command. Dressed up as Arabs they carried out raids, searches and attacks against British and Yemeni civilian and military targets that could then be blamed on the insurgents in an effort to justify the British oppression. The SAS in its first official deployment against urban guerillas was also deployed in 'Keeni Meeni' squads (a Swahili term appropriately meaning 'slithering snakes'). 'Keeni Meeni' members were SAS men thought most likely to be able to pass for Arabs...5

Without intelligence sources within the local Arab population, British military leaders settled on the inspired idea that torture of prisoners was the next best thing. This mainly involved beatings of one form or another but also sensory deprivation techniques that would later be used in the 30 years dirty war in Northern Ireland and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the time, allegations of torture and brutality were made in the British press against the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, an infantry regiment of the British Army. The conviction of members of the regiment in 1981 for the brutal murder of two catholic farmers in Northern Ireland in 1972 led to revelations about events in Yemen. The Glasgow Sunday Mail reported that it had:

conducted a careful and comprehensive investigation including the sworn statements of a dozen soldiers and officers detailing murder and robbery of local Arabs. A single soldier admitted shooting dead five unarmed Arab civilians in different incidents. Several others said they used morphine injections to kill captives. Others claimed to be witnesses to the bayonetting to death of a Arab teenager whose only crime was to be found in a cafe after curfew.6

Eventually, the British were forced out of Yemen (at least physically) and the two kingdoms of North and South Yemen were formally united as the Republic of Yemen on May 22, 1990. Yemen's complicated history since British withdrawal and the unification of the North and South is beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, even a brief analysis of the social and political history of Yemen over the past 50 years is enough to show that the vast majority of internal conflicts have been over one single issue - civil rights and the desire of normal people to live a dignified existence free from oppression and inequality. When such aspirations conflict (as they invariably do) with the 'geo-strategic' interests of world powers like the US, Britain, or the megalomaniacal pseudo-religious and racist ideals of the state of Israel, normal people lose. 100 years ago, the British elite could simply crush such popular uprisings and explain it away as just the fall-out from their munificent efforts to civilize a 'backward people'. Today however, it is not so easy to fool a somewhat more enlightened world public and a more convincing argument must be made. That argument is today called "the world-wide terrorist threat".

In Yemen today, the people that the US, British and Israeli governments claim are "Muslim terrorists", "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula", 'al-Qaeda in Yemen" etc. etc. are in fact local tribesmen and their families who are clamoring for social justice and have been doing so for several decades. They would very probably be easily enticed to put down their arms if they were given economic help and simple concessions such as roads and schools by the government. But that is too much to ask of either the global power brokers or Yemen's puppet government. To give any power to the people is, in the twisted, greed-driven minds of the global elite, the first step on the road to the loss of control, and control over normal human beings and our planet is the lifeblood of our corrupt and psychologically deviant leaders.

Glen Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East, Cambridge 1991, p.67

Joseph Kostiner, The Struggle for South Yemen, London 1984, p. 53

John Newsinger, British Counter-Insurgency, Palgrave 2002, p. 117

Stephen Harper, Last Sunset, London 1978, p. 85

Tony Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, London 1992, p. 400-403

David Ledger, Shifting Sands: British in South Arabia 1981, Peninsular

Comment: Update

The above article was written within a few days of the "Detroit terror attack". Since then, further details have emerged/been dug up:

Yemen has international debt totaling almost $6 billion, much of it owed to the IFC (basically the World Bank) and the Paris Club (same thing). What is most interesting however is that almost ALL of this $6 billion appeared on Yemen's books in the last 6 months of 2009.

In short, the Yemeni government sold its soul, or more specifically, the lives of many Yemeni civilians, to the World Bank. What it got in return is open to debate. When this type of thing happens (which it has, often, especially in the last 10 years) I like to think that the leaders of the lucky country in question received first class seats on the "rapture train", but I could be wrong.

More details about the bomber's father's banking interests have also appeared. Part of Yemen's debt is financed by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) which just happens to be the bank that financed the opening of Nigeria's first Islamic Bank, Jaiz Bank, in 2007. The bombers father is chairman of the Board of Directors of Jaiz bank

It's interesting, to say the least, that the father of the underwear bomber is financially beholden to/in bed with the banking institutions that recently gave Yemen stacks of cash, cash which said banking institutions (and the World Bank) probably stood to lose if the Houthi tribesmen in the North and the various social activist groups throughout Yemen were to succeed in their aim of homegrown regime change.

Could it be that, in bombing Yemen, the US government is simply following the orders of those mythical bankers? And if so, does that mean that said mythical international bankers actually exist??!

Having scoured their favorite "jihadist web sites" and message boards, it seems that the only beef IntelCenter/the mainstream media could come up with on the young underwear bomber was that he was lonely, as opposed to a radical hate-filled Islamophile jihadist bent on destroying Western civilization. Oh well.

However, the FBI did interview him and claimed that:

"he made contact via the internet with a radical imam in Yemen who then connected him with al Qaeda leaders in a village north of the country's capital, Sanaa."

"was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. I didn't get to talk to him much on a personal level. I was really shocked when I saw the reports. You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."

Strangely enough, I had the same impression, and I didn't even know him.

One last thing, that is perhaps of note. In September 2008, the Nigerian government were debating whether or not to allow the Mossad to come and train Nigerian security forces. It seems they probably decided to go with the idea because, according to one of the Nigerian MPs:

"They (Mossad) are professionals and they are here to help train our own intelligence agents. I don't see any way by which their presence in the country [could] pose any threat to our National Security."

Famous last words perhaps, at least for the young Mutallab, and the aspirations of the Yemeni people.

An established web-based essayist and print author, Quinn has been writing incisive editorials for Sott.net for over 10 years. His articles have appeared on many alternative news sites and he has been interviewed on several internet radio shows and has also appeared on Iranian Press TV. His articles can also be found on his personal blog JoeQuinn.net.

While my fruitless attempt to educate the masses about such things as "Avatar", "The Host by Stephanie Meyer, or just plain old "Aset Ka" by none other than their own group of "Body snatchers", it plain to see or shall I say "feel" the presence of evil in our midst.

These acts of coordinated evil are not in fact human, but "sub-human" and will continue as long as the populace fails to understand that our planet and our leader's bodies have been compromised.

In Hinduism, Avatar or Avatāra (Devanagari अवतार, Sanskrit for "descent (of a deity)", from the verbal root tṝ "to cross over") refers to the appearance in physical form, having descended from heaven to earth, of a deity.

A quick visit to the CIA World Factbook site reveals the Yemen's number one industry is crude oil production and refining. This is also the country's major export product, the primary buyers being China, Thailand and India. Yemen is strategically located at the choke point from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea. From there it is just a hop, skip and a jump through the Suez to Israel. Not to mention its long common border with southern Saudi Arabia.

Control and military occupation of Yemen would be a great advantage to anyone wanting to "secure access" to the Saudi oilfields.

"the stupidity of the U.S..." I think the Sott team has pretty much covered that unfortunate reality.

Also,

As long as we keep sending our little cannon fodders to have their minds vacuumed 8 hours a day in the compulsory systems ("schools") we can expect no change in the environment of mans mind here in the "good" ole U.S. of A.

Speaking of glacial rebound... the ice age has already hit the majority of Twitters and Facebookers minds here.

Finally, I had heard that the Detroit area holds the largest population of Arabs in the the States. Ponerization equals polarization. Just what the Detroiters need - more stress - right?

the fact that he had to be escorted to the gate by a "well-dressed man" who then had to talk to the manager to get him on the plane (without or without a passport) suggests to me that the young Mutallab was deemed not reliable or coherent enough to get himself through security and on to the airplane without raising suspicions. That still doesn't answer who the "well-dressed man" was, and the mainstream media is largely IGNORING this important detail!

God. You've got a mind programmed robot that can't function properly, can't get himself through security without raising a few eyebrows, so they just walk him past all that and take him to the gate by the hand. :o

"...Pentaerythritol, which is a building block for PETN. To make PETN, Pentaerythritol must be mixed with concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. It is assumed that these acids were in the syringe..."
I wonder where you heard that? I don't believe it. Nitration is a process that generates large amounts of heat and requires cooling with a water jacket. If the reacting mixture is allowed to get hot, it doesn't produce the explosive tetranitrate. Furthermore, it needs four or five times the volume of acid as the material being nitrated. This is not something you can make in five minutes on a plane.

came from the mainstream news, so yeah, not exactly a reliable source. And for sure these kind of things can't be done in five minutes on a plane, there have been a few other alleged attempts to mix up a bomb in the toilet of a commercial jet that, by all accounts were destined to, at most, blow up and singe the would-be bombers eyebrows. Remember the supposed bath-tub bombers in the UK a couple of years ago, and the "shoe bomber" back in 2001. The only explanation I can think of right now is that the handlers of these hapless individuals never had any intention to do any damage other than to the delicate psychological balance of the civilian population and the human rights of the patsies.

Thanks for the comments. I, too, don't believe the thing was actually meant to explode. But when one writes an article which half the world is going to dismiss as a conspiracy theory, scientific inaccuracy weakens one's case.

Great article. Summarizes many posts over the past week, with the geopolitical background to understand it all. I agree that the crotch-bomb was not intended to explode. But once again, how did the device get past even rudimentary security? The ability to chemically sniff for nitrates is not exactly cutting edge tech.

The smoking guns are the "hero" ready to tackle the dupe bomber, and the cameraman filming it all. Quite Hollywood, isn't it?

Forward this article to EVERYONE you know. Remember the Minot B-52 incident? That story went viral, and whatever was intended for the nukes went on the back burner. Keep this story viral, so the perpetrators will hesitate before rolling out Act II.

to get at his parents, simple! Now, what the reason was is still unclear but it becomes obvious that the target was his parents when one considers the inaction of all the security agencies involved. Clues: The kid's mom was Yemeni. The father had extensive links to Israeli investments in Nigeria and to the Nigerian government and President, who is rumored to be a relation of his. But perhaps, most importantly, the man spent most of his life time travelling through the maze of Nigeria's banking industry and financial institutions. Those factors when added together are invaluable to foreign investments in any country. Dr. Mutallab's Yemeni wife (Farouk's mother) is rumored to be his favorite, just imagine for a sec where the wife complains about the way Israel and the US are going about killing her people in Yemen and Daddy Mutallab becomes so naive as to mention it to his Israeli and American friends. Or a situation where they want something in Nigeria which he can't get or is opposed to giving. Going to complain about Farouk's extremist leanings to the CIA Chief of Station a few months back, wouldn't be a first time, it'd be a last resort move. He must have shared that information with a lot of friends he thought he could trust long before that 'official' report. And in sharing his concerns, he must have approached friends he thought could help or be useful in this instance. What better friends would he have turned to, if not the Israelis and Americans? People versed in the art of counter-insurgence etc etc. Get the picture? It wouldn't have been long before they figured that setting Farouk up as a patsy would be killing two birds with a stone i.e. acquiring for themselves blackmail material and getting whatever job they needed Mutallab to do done. Way back since 1975, Dr. Mutallab had been in bed with the IMF and World bank. He brought them into the economic system of my country Nigeria. He opened the Nigerian gates for the Israelis too. He was their Man Friday and in return they made him fabulously rich! Now, the IMF and World Bank are having their investments threatened in Yemen by a likely change of government and Dr. Mutallab just happens to have a Yemeni wife! Why in the world do you think the Yemeni government would refuse such priced visitor and their In-Law visa to their country? The only reason would be that they know of his Israeli (who are their regional enemies) and American connections and that they are indeed very wary of him. Dr. Mutallab is not just the richest man in Africa, he is one of the richest men on earth!

That was quite educational. I had a feeling there was some strategic importance there in how it ties in with the Red Sea/Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden/Indian Ocean. Also of note is the recent goings on in Ethiopia/Somalia. I wonder how surrounded the People of Iran feel. The US has basis all the way around them now.

As always, a very thought-provoking piece of work. Notwithstanding 'Sparks' comments about scientific inaccuracy potentially devaluing your analysis, can I plead with you for a very minor change in your writing style? Could you please resist the temptation to use sarcasm to emphasize some of your points? Its not needed and really does take away from some of your articles. The pentagon frozen fish title has to be the worst ever!!!

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! I've wanted to mention it to you for ages, but have held off in the hope that someone more qualified than I to criticize might get in first.

and thanks for he feedback, it's always useful. I'll keep your comments on sarcasm in mind. I suppose there's a fine line between satire and sarcasm, with satire being the better option. When appropriate, I'll try to stick to the official line of satire from now on!

I think that the reason Joe's work is so popular is because of his biting sarcasm. Let's face it, when you grow up Catholic in Northern Ireland, you learn a lot about how things work, how to survive, and how to stay sane; and then you put it all in your writing.

If it bothers you, try living that life and then working on SOTT for about seven years and see if you don't either go mad, or develop a grim sense of humor.

Perhaps part of the job of 'truthifying' official lies for others is to douse them in humour so the shock of SEEING is more palatable to a mind reared on a steady diet of lies.

Visiting family over the holidays, my brother had to actually take me aside and suggest that there were occasions where relatives couldn't tell whether I was being sarcastic or voicing 'honest' opinions. I thanked him for grounding me into considering those around me, then explained, in a similar vein as Laura has here, that sarcasm has helped me remain in sanity's orbit these past few years.

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy... The loss of Liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad..." -James Madison, fourth president of the United States.

It occurred to me that now this wisdom not only applies to one nation, but the world...